The second FLW Tour stop of 2008 is now upon us and it’s time to make those last-minute adjustments to your Fantasy Fishing picks for Lewis Smith Lake.
Now that I have arrived at the lake and ground checked the conditions, I’m going to make a few adjustments to my original Pundits’ Picks lineup.
The main factor in my changes centers on the spawn. Several weeks ago I was uncertain as to how close Lewis Smith bass would be to the spawn. This timeframe is right on the brink of going either way: pre-spawn or spawn.
A brutal cold front could make it a total pre-spawn event while sunny warm temperatures could bring bass to the beds.
After surveying the conditions the last couple of days and looking at the impending weather, I believe this event is going to be very similar to years when the Wal-Mart Open was held on Beaver Lake in early April.
During several of those Wal-Mart Opens, bass made their move onto beds during the actual tournament days, and pros who were able to find new bass locking on beds on an hourly basis were successful.
Two names that come to mind are Andre Moore and Clark Wendlandt. Both have won the Wal-Mart Open twice by catching very early spawners.
While comparing Arkansas’ Beaver Lake with Lewis Smith in Alabama might seem like a stretch, the two lakes share some strong resemblances.
First, they are both deep, clear impoundments full of steep, rocky banks.
Second, both lakes have a mix of spotted and largemouth bass.
Finally, and most importantly, both have a rather stringent minimum keeper length limit for largemouth bass: 15 inches.
The length limit is critical because what makes Wendlandt and Moore so good at their sight-fishing game is the ability to “measure” fish in the water before investing the time to catch them.
The biggest problem with sight-fishing on longer length-limit lakes like Beaver and Smith is getting snared in the trap of spending 30 minutes to catch a bass that is a half inch short. Moore and Wendlandt do not fall victim to this; they can tell down to a quarter of an inch whether a bass is worth fishing for or not, which is why they both own two Wal-Mart Open trophies.
And they’re not the only ones who are good at this game. Other names to consider for an early sight bite include Greg Pugh, Cody Bird, Kevin Vida, Wesley Strader, Darrel Robertson, David Dudley and Koby Kreiger.
All of these anglers have the eyes to pick out keepers over non-keepers, which makes sight-fishing the most efficient way to fish if fish are on beds. Simply put, these anglers can literally pick out the fish they are going to catch instead of hoping that a “blind” bite is a 15-incher.
But in order for it to work, fish must be locking on beds and the only reason I think they will be locking down is because of the weather forecast for Jasper, Ala.
Currently, the water temperature on Lewis Smith is 58 to 60 degrees – right on the verge of moving fish on beds. And the weather forecast for the tournament is sunny with highs in the 70s – perfect for eyeballing bass on beds.
However, I’m still not going to shift all my picks into spawning mode. I’m still keeping Craig Powers, Carl Svebek and Shin Fukae in for pre-spawn bass.
Powers, Fukae and Svebek are all picks based on past Beaver Lake events, as well. All three anglers have done well there just before the spawn.
Powers knows how to catch them on top, Svebek will likely be patiently dabbling his Swacky worm around docks for staging fish and Fukae is a master at shaky-heading pre-spawners.
Rob Newell is a contributing editor at FLWOutdoors.com and also an FLW Fantasy Fishing pundit.